I’m party’s future, says David Feeney

A controversial candidate for the safe Labor seat of Batman, Senator
David Feeney
, says the party will need MPs like him in the challenging times ahead.

Senator Feeney, a member of the Right faction, is favoured to succeed the retiring
Martin Ferguson
as Labor’s candidate for the Melbourne seat after switching from a perilous third position on the party’s Senate ticket.

“I think we need a breadth of talent and experience and I am part of that puzzle," he said.

“I have a first class track record in building and developing Labor ideas and weaponising them against the Liberal Party."

He pointed to his leading roles on the successful 2002 Victorian and the 2006 South Australian campaigns. He denied he was being parachuted into the seat despite enjoying the backing of Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
.

“Where that argument might have had some standing was if this was being dictated by the national executive or the state executive; the community will choose it is as simple as that," he said.

His opponent,
Mary-Anne Thomas
, is backed by the Left faction. The chief executive of charity Plan International pushed her “progressive" beliefs as qualifying her for the seat.

She said she would promote the “best" of Labor traditions and seek to be part of a “principle-based Labor Party".

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“It is a party that has in some parts lost sight of its core values. I do not think the Labor government has effectively challenged the rhetoric around asylum seekers that was allowed to develop under the Howard government."

She had lived in the area for 15 years and felt the Labor members in Batman had a strong desire to see a local candidate.

Ms Thomas confirmed she had dropped her membership for some time saying she felt she could not be a member of a political party while serving as a senior public servant. She said she renewed her membership as soon as she left that role.

However she also admitted she was still a member of the party’s central branch as she had not yet made it to a local branch meeting.

Both Ms Thomas and Senator Feeney have required special permission from the party’s central administrative committee to qualify for the preselection ballot.

Senator Feeney denied that he was being delivered the seat courtesy of local factional bosses and their blocs of votes saying he was merely seeking support from the leaders in the electorate.

“Of course I’m trying to persuade them to support me, that is grassroots politics isn’t it?" he said.

Senator Feeney bridled at his oft-used moniker of “factional power broker".

“These terms are hackneyed and overused. So many people are now described as powerbrokers it’s a meaningless term," he said.

The Labor Party’s powerful administrative committee was due to meet on Friday night and expected to agree to an abbreviated campaign allowing a two-day vote probably starting on July 1.

Party sources suggest the right, which is backing Senator Feeney, has the numbers strongly lined up in the seat. A good marker of the relative factional strengths is the fact that Batman sends 25 delegates to the state conference.

Predicting how those delegates would split in a poll of the membership is slightly fraught as no such election has taken place since 2002.

Instead under an arrangement agreed by the factions the two main leaders in the area, state MPs Robin Scott and Nazih Elasmar, counted 13 delegates as their supporters.

Then there are several others closely aligned to them. If those numbers translate to the preselection then the right will win easily.

Some note that the fact party members in Batman have not been approached to vote in 11 years shows how much the locals have been taken for granted.

There is also growing evidence that the stoush is rallying together the long-split right wing of the Labor party together against the Left.

If that were the case the preselection could produce a substantial shift in power in the Victorian Labor Party.

A deal was struck several years ago between the dominant portion of the right faction, led by federal MPs Bill Shorten and Stephen Conroy , and the party’s left to avoid bloody battle s over seats.

Under that deal formerly powerful blocs including the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Union were marginalised.

The election of Senator Feeney in Batman would represent a more united approach by the right in the face of strong resistance from the left.